No Loss There

If you are anything like me, you probably have taken yourself too seriously. With maturity, that posture becomes less and less sustainable.

I remember the huge loss in my life when I realized I'd not become a priest (Roman Catholic). The Maryknoll Fathers who were my teachers actually prepared me for life outside the priesthood and were genuinely interested in my transition from the seminary life in which I felt at home. In hindsight, they helped me picture a life in which I would not be a priest.

One of the gifts to me was that of Father Sheridan who was my English teacher. In his class, I began to find in poetry and literature in general a broader world view of life than I had as yet formed. As a result, in college I became an English major. Like most English majors, I saw in the life of John Keats the romantic disposition. With time I even came to understand the huge loss he'd suffered in losing a future life with his true love, Fanny Brawne. As I suffered other losses in life, I began to realize the consolation that I found in poetry was linked closely with dealing with depression (not unlike Keats). I could obsess about the creation, a poem I was writing, instead of obsessing about my loss.

The connections was recently renewed when I saw the film Bright Star starring Ben Whishaw, written and directed by Jane Champion. It really hit me how the poem I'd written about John Keats and Fanny Brawne in my twenties and rewritten in maturity had gone from a placeholder kind of poem to a dramatic playlet within a playlet (one act essentially). I realized that had I not lived through all my losses I could not have managed to make art out of life the same as John Keats who managed it at such tender years. Had I died like Keats at age 23, I'd never have learned so deeply life's lessons of compassion and forgiveness of self as well. The mature poem makes light of the human condition and for me marks a passage from the youth who took himself too seriously to the adult who wants to be a player on life's stage. [1] I guess the benefit of living long is that I no longer take myself so seriously. No loss there!

[1] The profane dramatic poem The Allegorical Death of One John Keats is available upon request by making an email request to this blogger.